Training Begins

First two workouts down. Sunday and Tuesday were both 20 minute runs, about 1.25 miles each. This Saturday is our first team run. It is a timed, 3-mile outing to judge what pace group I'll be training in. I already know the answer to that: SLOW.

On the Road Again...

I have decided to train for another endurance event with Team In Training. As you may remember, I ran the Marine Corps Marathon with them in 2006. In the process, I met lots of wonderful people, made several fantastic new friends, accomplished something that this expert couch potato never thought possible, and raised nearly $2300 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's fight against blood cancers.

This time around, my girlfriend Rachel and I are training together for the Shamrock Half-Marathon on March 22, 2009, in Virginia Beach, VA. Besides challenging ourselves to do something difficult and uncommon, the other reason we're participating is to help Team In Training raise money to help stop leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma from taking more lives. This is a personal endeavour for us, because as a child, Rachel had lymphoma.

Rachel was diagnosed at the age of seven, underwent chemotherapy, and has been in remission for twenty years. As Rachel is a long-term survivor of the disease, it is very important to us to contribute to the cause and ensure that research finds a cure. Each year, lymphoma and other blood cancers strike some 110,450 Americans, while claiming more than 54,000 lives in the United States alone. Leukemia is one of the leading causes of death in children between the ages of 1-15. The good news is that the survival rate has risen from 4% in 1960 to 81% in the last decade. This is in part due to the money that The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society has raised to aid researchers in their fight to find cures for this disease.

My fundraising goal for this season is $2000. Please make a donation to support my participation in Team In Training and help advance the Society's mission. The support and generosity I received when training for MCM 2006 exceeded all of my expectations, and because of that I know that this goal is also easily attainable. My Team In Training fundraising page is where you can track the progress of that effort. I am going to maintain this page as my training log. So tune in regularly to see how my workouts are progressing (as well as non-training related insights into life, the universe and everything).

On behalf of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, I want to thank you in advance for your love and support!

I Award You No Points

I just love this clip:

Long Time, No See

It's been quite some time since I last posted here. The original idea was for this to primarily be a training log for my efforts toward the St. Anthony's Triathlon. Since, I had to drop out of training due to scheduling conflicts, I ended up neglecting the blog as well. (Trying to swim three times per week and travel for work does not come together easily.) Also, I started posting a lot of the pop-culture silliness that I found on Facebook instead. But this is a different medium, and it is better suited to different things. I'm also going to be training again, and this will be where I again log that effort. (See forthcoming post for details.) So the blog returns!

This One Goes to Eleven

Wait a second -- eleven planets? I came across this AP article on CNN today. I thought it was a little silly when Pluto got demoted from full planet status a while ago. Now, it seems, we have eleven planets. There are the regular eight planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune. But now were including three dwarf planets in the count: Ceres, Pluto and Eris. So the new mnemonic goes like this, "My Very Exciting Magic Carpet Just Sailed Under Nine Palace Elephants." Everything I learned in elementary school is now obsolete.

Tuesday Swim

Another night in the pool completed. Swim training is damn hard work, and I still don't feel comfortable in the water yet. But it was better than last week, so I will keep at it. This weekend will start the several swim workouts per week that I need to get prepared for St. Anthony's. Wish me luck.

Monday's Run

Two more miles on the odometer Monday. Nice and easy pace. I'm still getting back into the swing of exercising regularly, but it does feel pretty good. Running on the treadmill is a little tedious, especially since the only thing on the TVs in the gym at work is CNN. After a full day of work, Lou Dobbs is the last thing I want to watch during my run. That makes my iPod Nano a key piece of equipment. For motivation on the treadmill, there's little better than some Van Halen. Personally, I'm partial to the Sammy Hagar-era stuff, such as 5150 and OU812. All of this VH talk is just an excuse to post the awesome video below of my favorite Van Halen song, "Dreams," featuring the US Navy's Blue Angels. Enjoy!




FYI, the video is straight out of 1986, when the Navy Flight Demonstration Team was still flying A-4 Skyhawks. Today's Blue Angels fly F/A-18 Hornets.